The CEO Who Got Fined For Hiring Too Many People

Peter Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, testified before the House Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight, and Government Spending on September 13.He was there to speak on the subject of job creation, but Schiff also knows a few things about how the government can destroy jobs.In his remarks before the subcommittee, which he also published in full at Forbes, he explained how he was fined for hiring too many people:

Regulations have substantially increased the costs and risks associated with job creation. Employers are subjected to all sorts of onerous regulations, taxes, and legal liability. The act of becoming an employer should be made as easy as possible. Instead we have made it more difficult. In fact, among small business owners, limiting the number of employees is generally a goal. This is not a consequence of the market, but of a rational desire on the part of business owners to limit their cost and legal liabilities. They would prefer to hire workers, but these added burdens make it preferable to seek out alternatives.

In my own business, securities regulations have prohibited me from hiring brokers for more than three years. I was even fined fifteen thousand dollar expressly for hiring too many brokers in 2008. In the process I incurred more than $500,000 in legal bills to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome as a result of hiring too many workers. I have also been prohibited from opening up additional offices. I had a major expansion plan that would have resulted in my creating hundreds of additional jobs. Regulations have forced me to put those jobs on hold.

In addition, the added cost of security regulations have forced me to create an offshore brokerage firm to handle foreign accounts that are now too expensive to handle from the United States. Revenue and jobs that would have been created in the U.S. are now being created abroad instead. In addition, I am moving several asset management jobs from Newport Beach, California to Singapore.

(Emphasis mine.)Noting that an increasingly hostile business environment in the United States will naturally lead him to move capital, jobs, and tax revenue abroad, Schiff offered suggestions for an alternative approach:

To encourage real and lasting job growth the best thing the government can do is to make it as easy as possible for business to hire and employ people. This means cutting down on workplace regulations. It also means eliminating the punitive aspects of employment law that cause employers to think twice about hiring. To be blunt, the easier employees are to fire, the higher the likelihood they will be hired.

Schiff’s detailed proposals for promoting job growth are not timid: he suggested replacing all corporate and personal taxes with a national sales tax, abolishing the federal minimum wage, repealing mandated employment benefits like overtime pay and leave time, and shutting down extended unemployment benefits.He also thinks interest rates are too low, and should be “raised to bring on a badly needed restructuring of our economy,” which he admits would be painful at first, but would “lay the foundation upon which a real recovery can be built.”

That’s some pretty strong medicine, but it’s worth pondering in the context of endless political promises to “pivot to job creation.”If we really value job creation as a top priority, we should be willing to consider doing away with factors that impede job creation, no matter how traditionally accepted they might be.For example, here’s how Schiff addresses the federal minimum wage:

Minimum wages have never raised the wages of anyone and simply draw an arbitrary line that separates the employable from the unemployable. Just like prices, wages are determined by supply and demand. The demand for workers is a function of how much productivity a worker can produce. Setting the wage at $7.25 simply means that only those workers who can produce goods and services that create more than $7.25 (plus all additional payroll associated costs) per hour are eligible for jobs. Those who can’t, become permanently unemployable. The artificial limits encourage employers to look to minimize hires and to automate wherever possible.

In other words, as with every other form of price control, decreeing that labor must be purchased for at least $7.25 does not make all labor suddenly become worth $7.25.Why is it considered “normal” to force taxpayers to pay almost five million dollars per job to create 3500 “green” jobs, but relaxing the minimum wage law is unthinkable?

In a similar vein, Schiff offers tough and provocative talk about mandatory workplace benefits:

Employment is a voluntary relationship between two parties. The more room the parties have to negotiate and agree on their own terms, the more likely a job will be created. Rules imposed from the top create inefficiencies that limit employment opportunities. Employee benefits are a cost of employment, and high value employees have all the bargaining power they need to extract benefits from employers. They are free to search for the best benefits they can get just as they search for the best wages.

Companies that do not offer benefits will lose employees to companies that do. Just as employees are free to leave companies at will, so too should employers be free to terminate an employee without fear of costly repercussions. Individuals should not gain rights because they are employees, and individuals should not lose rights because they become employers.

What do Americans value more: job creation, or all the social “benefits” built into the federally-mandated cost of labor?Schiff’s overall point is that people respond to incentives.When labor is artificially transformed into an expensive and risky resource, employers purchase less of it.Politicians who talk about jobs as their “highest” priority really mean that jobs are somewhere in their top 20 priorities, and might crack the top 10, if their poll numbers drop low enough.

No amount of political grandstanding or short-term “stimulus” spending can re-program large numbers of human beings away from rational economic behavior.The high-minded intentions behind government regulation are often quite at variance from the behavior it actually encourages, or discourages, among those who don’t make business decisions based on the moral postures struck by politicians.

It’s also a cold truth, often forgotten during heated moments of class warfare, that job creators have a variety of options for responding to perverse incentives.Americans too often discuss employment from within a very narrow box… but escaping that box is not impossible.Just ask the CEO who started sending jobs overseas, when the U.S. government fined him for hiring too many people.

Minimum wage laws have always been a scam used by politicians to buy votes. It should be totally abolished. Pay people what they are worth. If they want a raise, they should work harder than the person next to them. If they are a valuable employee, their employer will be willing to pay them a higher wage to keep them from going down the road to seek a different employer that IS willing to pay them a higher wage.

Those people that might benefit from minimum wage laws are people that either have no desire to work hard for a raise, or else they are job hoppers (people who either can’t hold a steady job because of their poor work habits, or people who don’t want to work hard, so they drift from job to job looking for the perfect job that gives them more pay for the least amount of work).

Business owners have to compensate to pay for raising the minimum wage by either raising their prices, or hiring less people. So it either creates inflation or unemployment. Business owners are less likely to hire a high school student because that student has no experience. Why are we trying to raise the standard of living of people that are probably still living at home with mom and dad? They don’t need the government to artificially force their employer to give them a raise due to an increase in the cost of living. Minimum wage just creates inflation, it does not compensate for it.

Why do voters keep electing politicians who promise to raise the minimum wage? That should be a red flag when a politician promises that. It’s just as bad as Obamacare, another Federal mandate that makes it difficult to own a business.

Not only would eliminating the minimum wage result in a severe drop in unemployment, but it would also result in lower prices of products that are made in the United States. This would help eliminate our trade deficit, it might help reduce illegal immigration, and stop our businesses from moving out of the country.

CaptainAhab

Is anyone else having difficulties with Disqus? I have a new computer, and I have a difficult time loading comments, and editing them. Does Mozilla Firefox work better than Internet Explorer?

reddarin

Well. I guess we can expect alousis to stroll through here in a minute telling us how wrong this CEO is because the communist economics class he took said so.

AgTrotter

Chrome definitely works better than IE. I’m guessing that FireFox will too.

reddarin

No problems here so far and I use Chrome. Could be a location issue instead of a browser issue though.

globalcrap

O Bogus working hard to keep American workers out of work, and sending our American jobs overseas to terrorist countries. Impeachment is way past do.

another_engineer

One of the arguments used that doesn’t pass the smell test 100% is the “hostile to business” argument. If that was the case, why is it that these companies remain in the various “hostile” states, but only hire H1B’s ? If the business climate was so “hostile” one would think they would just pull up and leave. I know of a local company that is roughly 40% H1B and they almost flat out refuse to hire US citizens.

Dr_Zoidberg_Sr

I worked a summer job 1976-1978 at an amusment park. We were paid 2.10 hr. They were able to hire a bunch of teens. If we had a minimum wage at the time, they would have not been able to hire as many kids. I was happy to have the job.

Dr_Zoidberg_Sr

I have issues too, it seems to be random. I use IE.

Dustoff

I stopped using IE long time ago. Firefox is much faster with less problems.

flmom0f4

I watched that testimony from Schiff yesterday, it was awesome, he spoke so much sense in a place where so little of it is shown. BTW, Schiff predicted the housing bust back in 2006. In a similar vein, just watched another epic Santelli rant on CNBC this morning, they had a Yale economics professor on, talking about how the Government needs to restructure the mortgages, basically forgiving the loans that are dragging housing down. Santelli unloaded on the professor, not giving him a word in edgewise, and the money quote for me was when Santelli ended with a classic, and I’m paraphrasing, “I don’t know who it is I was talking to, but anytime you’re in Chicago, I’d be happy to buy you a big breakfast, but don’t ask me to buy your neighbor’s mortgage” Classic Santelli. Oh and another classic was his answer to the professor’s call for more regulation was, “Failure IS the regulator”. Man I love that guy.

reddarin

>they would just pull up and leave

The fact that they haven’t doesn’t disprove the hostile environment assertion. It means there are other factors that separately or in some combination keep businesses from relocating.

For example, their clientele is anchored in their area. Relocating means moving to a new market where they are unknown and starting over. Very risky.

In case you haven’t noticed, most of the manufacturing base in America HAS pulled up and left. People still “try” to do business even in a hostile environment, because not EVERYONE is content to be a slave to the government and entitlement dependency. The point of the article is that it affects HOW they do business, and in particular how it affects hiring. Besides, not everyone has the option to just “pick up and leave”. This is why you will so many empty store fronts and boarded up businesses.

As for immigrant labor, just try to get Americans to do some of the menial labor type jobs immigrants are willing to do at salaries that allow you to compete. Sorry dude, but picking oranges with union labor thus forcing you sell the fruit at $10 a piece = a very short lived business.

flmom0f4

Thanks, I’m going to watch it again, much better than porn.

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

I live near Newport Beach, CA. Business owners and executives love living in and near Newport Beach, CA (although, being a simple software engineer, I am not in that category).

If they (or you for that matter) have a choice to: (1) hire cheaper labor — mostly engineers — akin to indentured servitude (H1-B Visa holders) and remain in their homes, or (2) make a costly move out-of-state, uproot their families, and leave their homes, friends, and lifestyles — which choice do you suppose gets made?

I’ve worked with H1-B Visa holders who kill themselves (work 60- to 80-hour weeks and put up with all kinds of abuse, at a much lower salary than mine) out of terrifying fear of losing their job and thus the company’s sponsorship. Were that to occur, they have to find another company to sponsor them in some short period of time or leave the country (or remain illegally, virtually guaranteeing them no chance at a normal salaried position).

reddarin

Great post till you got to this part:

“at salaries that allow you to compete”

A complete non-issue. Produce prices, to use your example, will go up, probably a lot, but they won’t stay up. The artificially low wages caused by the illegal workers stifles innovation. Remove them and the low wages and the demand for innovation will shoot up to bring prices down. The pressure would be tremendous because the company that innovates and gets their produce to the market cheaper will make a killing.

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

Theory always trumps experience! See White House occupant and his record of “success” for details …

flmom0f4

For me it was the cost of doing so. You have to weigh up the cost of relocating versus the revenue stream that would justify it. Schiff was on Greta last night, and he expanded a little on other regulations that are also onerous, namely the FINRA regulations that emanated from the Patriot Act that essentially makes companies such as his act as de facto IRS and FBI agents in the reporting of foreign transactions.

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

If switching to FireFox (recommended), make sure to install the add-on called “Adblock Plus” for a much more pleasurable user experience …

Keith1941

Thanks for the info–it was good. Just another example of a dumb-ass professor–like the ones that surround Obama.

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

What’s amazing and nearly incomprehensible to me is that I’m TOTALLY convinced Obama — the smartest man in the world we were told — would be TOTALLY incapable of reading, comprehending, conceptualizing, caring, or understanding the consequences and wider implications of this simple essay and testimony … mind-blowing.

Keith1941

I agree. Too many Americans don’t even know what is going on. The Boeing situation should be an impeachable offense. The Wagner Act created the NLRB. It was never intended for this. I wonder how many of our elected officials know this. Boeing competes with Airbus, which is “supported” by several European countries. I guess Boeing will lose that $1,000,000,000–oh well, that’s nothing to Obama.

GomeznSA

‘Only’ 1 billion? – shucks – that’s like – 535 Solyndras. Chump change.
Airbus isn’t just supported by several European countries – they ‘carried’ it for several years (more like decades) when it wasn’t even close to making expenses, much less any sort of profit. The rationale was that they could afford it since Boeing was (more or less) a private enterprise and in the long run if they could get enough market share they would (sort of) become self sustaining and turn a profit.

Ed_USA

“What do Americans value more: job creation, or all the social “benefits”
built into the federally-mandated cost of labor?”

Obviously they value the “benefits”. Let’s look at just one aspect of regulation of employment, child labor. When they could, employers hired children at low wages. As Mr. Shiff says, “The more room the parties have to negotiate and agree on their own terms, the more likely a job will be created.” and plenty of jobs were created for children to work 16 hour days, 6 days a week, in factories. Starting with MA in 1836, gov’t started to, in Mr. Shiff’s words, “create inefficiencies that limit employment opportunities” by limiting child labor. Due to stiff opposition from industry, it took 100 years, until 1938 to get federal laws against child labor in place.

Are today’s employers so much kinder and gentler than those of the past that we can do away with regulations? Has the power imbalance between corporations and the individual job-seeker become smaller, or larger? Would a worker seeking a factory job in, say Detroit, face more or less competition for that job than in the past? Did the worker have to compete with workers in China for that job 100 years ago?

This talk of going back to laissez faire practices of the 19th century is anachronistic nonsense. It was rejected then and it would be rejected even more forcefully now. There is a good reason why not one single country on the planet now has a laissez faire economy. Not one. Even Communism has fared better than that.

Ed_USA

Shiff also bet his clients’ money on massive inflation and a decline of the dollar. After the 2008 crash, when money fled to the safety of the dollar, those clients lost from 40% to 70%. A true financial genius, that Shiff.

condor53

Business is about making money. If you are in business and you don’t care about making money it is called a hobby. If the environment is right entrepreneurs will make a product or offer a service and this requires the hiring of people…job creation.
When every step of the way you are hammered with fees, regulations and paperwork it becomes more costly to do business and as a result you have less of it.
It really is that simple.

Ed_USA

Thanks for sharing your examples of how today’s kinder and gentler employers would never dream of exploiting or abusing workers. It should be noted, though, that the H1-B software workers are, in the big picture, a very highly skilled group. How does Shiff’s comment “high value employees have all the bargaining power they need to extract benefits from employers” hold up in this example?

You and I, Shain, have been very fortunate to have the right skills for the past couple of decades. Now we’re starting to face what manufacturing workers faced back in the ’80s. Jobs are moving abroad where wages are lower. Given the cost of living in the US, you cannot possibly work for the wages that your competition gets in India.

Are you ready for Shiff’s solution, where you, alone and without any legal constraints, negotiate with multinational corporations for your job? Who’s likely to come out on top in that bargain?

PR_Ohio

The word I used was immigrant, not illegal. There is certainly a demand and a place for low-wage jobs in America, especially for the unskilled. You simply cannot compete with overpriced labor, regardless of all the wishful thinking about innovation. People will “innovate” those overpriced wage jobs away in order to survive.

Illegals should be deported. Period.

condor53

This is a tired argument that holds little water. Look at the construction industry. I live in California and it is hard to find a construction site that isn’t tuned to a spanish station.

And the funny part is that we are not doing the illegals a favor. They have zero upward mobility and zero power. They can’t complain about working conditions and bad treatment because they will be out of a job.

The truth of the matter is that to solve the immigration problem simply fine the hell out of any company that uses illegals. Then set up a guest worker program. Businesses will adjust and illegals will get “fair and balanced ” treatment.

Martin Hale

CaptAhab – do you by any chance have pop-up or script blocking enabled? That can cause serious problems at site which use Disqus. On the other hand, Disqus is subject to “availability issues” from time to time. One way you can check on it is to find another site which uses Disqus and try to enter a comment there.

I have five main browsers which I use on my computer – FF is my primary browsing tool, but I have Opera, Chrome, Maxthon and MSIE installed as well. Sometimes certain sites are optimised for a certain browser. FF users have had an add-on available for years which will load a page using MSIE without having to start MSIE. Some sites like that.

PR_Ohio

Sorry Ed, but you are WAY out in left field on this. I don’t recall anyone even remotely suggesting a return to “laissez faire”. Your whole argument is a red herring and invalid as a result.

reddarin

Yes. I didn’t misread what you wrote:

“just try to get Americans to do some of the menial labor type jobs immigrants are willing to do at salaries that allow you to compete. Sorry dude, but picking oranges with union labor thus forcing you sell the fruit at $10 a piece”

I’m sure there are legal immigrants doing the work you are describing here but the face of illegal immigration has always been the hapless illegal alien picking lettuce and the refrain from the libs (not you) has always been that Americans wouldn’t tolerate the cost of produce picked by legal workers.

>You simply cannot compete with overpriced labor

I’m not sure I understand you here PR. What is ‘overpriced labor’? Union labor? I agree. But farm workers are not unionized. Are they?

It’s possible that removing the illegal aliens would result in zero farming in America and all produce being imported.

The answer to that cannot possibly be an illegal workforce.

settrigger

This is my first day in a long time of being able to post. Don’t know what changed

flmom0f4

Schiff’s philosophy is to buy long, so even though you quote a wikipedia figure of a loss of 40%-70% in 2008, here we are in 2011 and whilst I don’t have an account with Schiff, I have read testimonials from clients who are happy with their portfolios, and no you won’t find that on wikipedia. BTW Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway was down 40% too around the same time.

RenegadeScholar

Reading the Leftists’ talking point faxes again?

Note that neither you nor any leftists have coherent arguments against common sense and wisdom. All you know how to do is attack, attack, attack.

It’s not working anymore.

flmom0f4

He is afflicted…….it’s called strawmanitis, Obama has it too.

flmom0f4

They have a similar practice in the medical field, it’s called internship. Those that survive go on to be doctors or surgeons and then are free to gain financially from the slog of med school and internship, until Obamacare kicks in, that is.

RenegadeScholar

How does Shiff’s comment “high value employees have all the bargaining
power they need to extract benefits from employers” hold up in this
example?

Do you have any idea what these same H1-B people would get paid in India compared to here? They ARE making the choice, and they ARE in the position to “extract benefits.” They are skilled enough to have an opportunity to have a tech firm bring them from across the world to work for them. Getting sent back to India if they are laid off is NOT a failure. They still will make excellent money at INDIAN rates, but it just won’t be the bonanza of an American salary.

The problem, Ed_Red, is that too many Leftists think they are HELPING people when they make it nearly impossible to hire them. Would someone rather be employed at $6.00/hr, or unemployed? Leftists prefer them to be unemployed and dependent on government rather than employed.

Worse, these same potential employees SHOULD be able to make good money as entrepreneurs, but again, they are thwarted by government regulations like the need to pay $100,000 for a license to be a cabbie in New York.

Who does that $100,000 license fee help, except existing cab companies? Does it really help “the little guy” or “working people?”

Why should an African woman, who grew up braiding her friends’ and family’s hair, require a license to do the same in the USA? She knows more about it than the people issuing the licenses EVER will. Why these barriers to self-sufficiency? Why is it better for them to be unemployed and running up our national debt than employed and paying taxes?

RenegadeScholar

The race to the bottom for workers has been tried, and it was rejected in every time and place.

Ridiculous Leftist talking points. If there were ever truly a “race to the bottom,” then all companies would have opened plants in Nigeria.

reddarin

> Due to stiff opposition from industry, it took 100 years

Yeah. Revisionism much?

Child labor laws were the result of Union and Government collusion to squeeze out the competition these kids represented. Why hire an adult at adult wages when you can hire a kid that can do the job much cheaper.

If there was a problem it wouldn’t have taken the People 100 years to address it.

RenegadeScholar

it took 100 years, until 1938 to get federal laws against child labor in place.

Ahh…yes.

The leftists, socialists and communists paint themselves as “heroes” because of the “horror of child labor” that they helped to eradicate. For the most part, that’s a bunch of self-congratulatory propaganda BS. Like ANY kind of labor, child labor had its horrors, but it also had its benefits. Outlawing child labor was primarily a way for the unionized workers to protect their own jobs and pay. But leftist schools don’t teach that.

“Child labor” has existed for tens of thousands of years. It has always been the way for a child to gain skills in the real world, working next to his family on the farm or in the blacksmith’s shop. This was the case for the vast majority of child labor.

So the geniuses on the left outlaw child labor, so suddenly the kids who are in desperate need of money because they are homeless or their families are in trouble turn instead to UNREGULATED child labor–PROSTITUTION! Wow–what a great thing, socialists! You protect your own jobs under the guise of “protecting children” and turn them into prostitutes instead of laborers. That really “helps” them, doesn’t it!

And the ones who aren’t desperate: now, instead of kids learning skills, we have bored kids, not allowed to work, watching leftist TV all day, getting fat, and put into leftist schools where they learn nothing of value, but are told they should have high self-esteem. Young adults are now told they are “adolescents” (a modern term) rather than young adults, and should view themselves as helpless and in need of the government to rescue them. Alexander began his conquest of the world at age 18, commanding entire armies, but now we are to treat 26 year-olds as helplessly dependent on their parents.

Real progress, progressives!

reddarin

>Would someone rather be employed at $6.00/hr, or unemployed?

Boy howdy. My GF’s son is an excellent example of the Liberals screwing the crap out of unskilled low experience workers.

That boy couldn’t keep a job to save his ass. His work ethic sucked. Thanks to the Liberals and minimum wage laws no one could afford to keep him on the payroll long enough to teach him how to take a job seriously. And that was before the crash Franks (D) and Dobbs (D) forced on America in 2008.

You can blame his upbringing, I do, but nothing can replace OJT when it comes to actually working.

1LonesomeDove1

Why on earth would anyone value the benefits of a job that was not created? You have to first create a job before you can enjoy any benefits, so I’d say you start there first, and so far……the job market is decreasing unlike as promised. That makes benefits irrelevant to the argument.

What you propose here is a better product with a lousy delivery system.

Today, I would say that state laws should be made against employer exploitation of workers, and there is no need for federal interference. Problem is, unions, I believe, do not want common everyday jobs to be equal to their own in benefits or wages.

“Did the worker have to compete with workers in China for that job 100 years ago?”

No, because 100 years ago we didn’t have moderate “luke warm” to liberal republicans and liberal democrats giving “favored nation” status to China, nor were they insane enough to implement NAFTA and export our jobs overseas. 100 years ago, politicians, for the most part, were in control of their freaking senses.

“Even in China there is outrage at poor working conditions that is bringing reforms.”

LOL!!!!!! Sure there is……sure.
If there is any outrage at all, you can be sure that it’s not “outspoken” outrage against the government, and I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for those reforms if I were you.
I swear, you’ll swallow anything as long as it serves your purpose.

“Even Communism has fared better than that.”

Coming from you, go figure.

This nonsense of yours reminds me of the story about the Civil War Sergeant who said,

“There good news and bad news, boys.”
The troops asked what was the bad news.
“Bad news is, there’s nothing left but horse manure to eat.”
What’s the good news, they asked.
“Good news is, there ain’t enough to go around.”

Well, there certainly isn’t any shortage of YOUR horse manure.

ThorsteinVeblen2012

This guy’s business is getting people to invest outside the United States.

Now he’s wrapping himself in the flag complaining that he has to export jobs because of mean old America. That’s his business.

There’s probably a whole lot more to the story than the esteemed scribbler Mr. Hayward is letting on. All you have to do is tell a story no matter how tenuous a link to truth and John will scribble another whiney account of how Obama failed again.

Typical.

Ed_USA

“child labor had its horrors, but it also had its benefits.”

I don’t suppose you work in supply chain management for the shoe industry….

“turn instead to UNREGULATED child labor–PROSTITUTION!”

“UNREGULATED”?? I really wouldn’t call something that is completely illegal “unregulated”. Your definition of “unregulated” is, perhaps, a bit out of step with the usual definition.

Ed_USA

Was the 1856 requirement in MA that kids attend school also just to avoid them from taking away union jobs? Or was it a genuine attempt to improve the lives of children?

Are you defending 19th century child labor practices? Seriously? Well, knock yourself out. I know of no better way to prove to all reasonable people that your views are both sick and dangerous.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QQERKFPHJRR67MD2CH2HVZZY4U Vince

They simply work harder and cheaper. It makes perfect sense for a biz to hire that kind of labor if it’s available.
Americans have become too smug in their standard of living and what they expect. There is global competition right here at home, but our Unions won’t accept it and continue to push for more and more.
Eventually, it just drives the company out of the country.

1LonesomeDove1

“Are you defending 19th century child labor practices? Seriously? Well, knock yourself out. I know of no better way to prove to all reasonable people that your views are both sick and dangerous.”

For anyone reading…

This is what ed usually does.
First he invents a position his opponent never took, then he attributes that position to his opponent and comments on it as though it’s true.
It never is, but this is one of the dishonest tactics ed loves to employ, and it’s always and inevitably followed by his usual insult that he can’t function here without.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QQERKFPHJRR67MD2CH2HVZZY4U Vince

Boeing won’t lose this. There’s too much opposition and the NLRB has no standing or merit in the case. They just know they can tie things up in the courts so that Boeing has to slow down their plans.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QQERKFPHJRR67MD2CH2HVZZY4U Vince

This guy is just trying to tell them how ridiculous the regulatory environmnent is for businesses today. I think he’s spot on and has pretty much told the whole story.
Will congress listen? Not the current administration, that’s for sure.
We have to change that in 2012 or sooner if we can impeach the usurper-in-chief.

ADRoberts

I suspect that we are not being told all the facts concerning the jobs that Schiff was refering to. Still, for an administration that CLAIMS to be concerned with jobs, it looks like, on every hand, we are seeing actions that destroy jobs.

Still it amazes me that he is willing to go to Singapore. Do you think tht somewhere along the way, these wealth, powerful men will realize that the actions that they see as being good business will eventually lead to the end of ALL of their business. What economy will there be when there are no jobs in American and all of the work and investment and etc is overseas. Then there will be NO PLACE TO SELL THE GOODS AND market their services.

It is called expediency and it is very short sighted. But then, that is what business CEOs have become.

Ed_USA

“then all companies would have opened plants in Nigeria.”

Funny you should say that. In 2007 Nigeria got 1/4th of all foreign direct investment in Africa. The US was the largest source of FDI for Nigeria.

But Nigeria is only infamous for its use of child labor in cocoa production. I’m sure that other industries go to other countries for their child labor. The shoe industry, for example, tends to prefer Asia to Africa.

ADRoberts

Personally, I think someone is messing with us. But then, what do I know.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QQERKFPHJRR67MD2CH2HVZZY4U Vince

Well said!
Leftists will never get it, they are mentally deposed to “liberalism”. It truly is a mental disease.
Not one leftist give-away program has ever succeeded the way it was intended, not one.
Yet we keep allowing DC to create one failed program after another. When does it stop???

reddarin

> I have a new computer

Send me your new computer and I’ll check it out and get it right back to you in a few months.

Ed_USA

And how would US workers fare if the gov’t did not restrict the flow of workers from India, China, etc. by H1-B limits, such as they are? Certainly US companies have pushed for higher numbers of imported workers.

So out with it, are you in favor of unrestricted immigration to the US? Are you in favor of unrestricted access to US markets for foreign companies, no matter what their practices in labor, environment, etc.?

1LonesomeDove1

“Was the 1856 requirement in MA that kids attend school also just to avoid them from taking away union jobs?”

Were the union members who are alive today, also alive in 1856? Was I even talking about 19th century anything?

You point changing moron.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QQERKFPHJRR67MD2CH2HVZZY4U Vince

Ya can’t reason with them. They don’t understand that concept.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QQERKFPHJRR67MD2CH2HVZZY4U Vince

AKA “Liberalism” – a mental disease that afficts people of self-righteousness and narcicism

1LonesomeDove1

I know only too well, and ed here is a prime example.

Ed_USA

“coherent arguments against common sense and wisdom.”

Sorry, pal, but genuine wisdom, common sense, and, most importantly, history say that the sort of laissez faire practices you advocate are intolerable to any peoples anywhere on this planet. No country on earth, and certainly not any first-world industrialized country, adheres to those practices.

That approach has been tried, in early 1800s Britain and in late 1800s America. They failed. Simple human decency caused them to be rejected.

Ed_USA

Did you read Shiff’s comments? What would you call his suggestions?

I hate to say it, but lack of gov’t regulation of business is precisely what “laissez faire” means.

Ed_USA

For anyone reading, Renegade said “child labor had its horrors, but it also had its benefits.” What would you call that?

LoathesomeDove is delusional. Ignore him.

1LonesomeDove1

He wasn’t talking so much about your comments. He was talking more so about your “method”.
As usual, you always fear the main point.

1LonesomeDove1

I wasn’t responding to him. I was responding to you.

Has there ever been an honest moment in your entire life?

Lenze1

Did I wake up in Russia? Since when can the goverment fine a company for hiring workers…under what regulation does that fall? How can the gooberment tell a private company what to do in that regard? How long have those regulations been in place?

1LonesomeDove1

A couple here may not be too familiar with ed_ussr, so here’s what I like to call……

****ed’ USA’s Progressive Circular Shuffle****

Step one: Tell them how smart you are, how sophisticated you are, how well educated you are, how enlightened you are……THEN…how stupid THEY are, how much better you are than they are; for example…….how Christianity is a myth and you are too smart to believe.

-When they refuse to bow to your will:

Step two: Call them names; insult their education, insult their job status, insult their cultural background, insult their upbringing, deny their facts as nonsense while proclaiming your facts to be the Holy Truth.

-When they STILL refuse to bow to you:

Step three: Whine like a girl, claim they’re don’t understand, shriek how unfair they are; how they’re being stubborn because they refuse to accept what YOU believe to be facts, tell them you’re just gonna ignore them.

-When they laugh at you for being a juvenile:

Step four: (repeat step one.)

RIchard Harris

Regardless about his investment strategies. He has the right to hire people and should not be fined for it. PERIOD!

Gil_the_thrill

“Politicians who talk about jobs as their “highest” priority really mean that jobs are somewhere in their top 20 priorities, and might crack the top 10, if their poll numbers drop low enough.”

There are only 2 kind of jobs that the President cares about other than his. First and formost is the pollsters’ job. He must watch those polls like a hawk. He can’t like what he sees. The other kind of job is a taxpayer funded job. His problem is the more he focuses on the taxpayer funded job the more he dislikes what the pollsters’ job tells him!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YSLUFQRQROCDGCDWEQSFK4MJSE William

Peter Schiff understands money. You apparently do not. Because of crack-pot monetary policies, the Dollar has declined by 98% since 1971. That is at better than a 9% per year compound rate.

Do not mistake a temporary panic, from countries that have also debased their currency, into dollars as a long term trend. The reality is very different. Put another way–why are sports hero salaries today over 200 times what they were after World War II, in terms of the $? Peter Schiff understands this.

You’d be amazed how many times REALLY intelligent people do REALLY stupid things!This is just one more example!

Ed_USA

“Dollar has declined by 98% since 1971″

Relative to what?

Ed_USA

Correction, you were responding to my reply to him. Check the thread. Then STFU you lying delusional moron. I’m sick of your useless noise.

1LonesomeDove1

Relative to what you can buy with it. What else do you do with a dollar?

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1LonesomeDove1

Yes, I was responding to YOUR reply, not agreeing with him.
If you want to disagree with him, fine…..but make more sense when you do.

Hey, call me some more names, child. It’s all you seem to be good at.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_G4NULNK5UQMYXO4HKLIS6YGXQU Lemon Bayette

Cash flow is the reason for the apparently short-sighted pragmatism by business owners. Next year doesn’t matter if you can’t make payroll now.

lrtgz3

Americans cannot compete with any other country in the world while democrats demand we get paid a minimum wage. If the unions bosses were not declaring ‘war’ against ‘those sob’s’ and holding guns to the heads of US citizens Americans jobs would not have left our country. Send the union bosses to China and Tibet and Africa and Saudi Arabia…. Then let us watch on the news how far they would get. Oh yes those ‘unions’ are for the ‘little guy’ aren’t they?

bheld

Ain’t it the truth??

Casino Magic in Biloxi, MS hired Puerto Rican workers and put them up eight at a time in a house and provided them transportation back and forth to work w/ the casino shuttle. All done very legally, of course.

Guess what the working conditions were like at that place? White guy like me didn’t stand a chance. At first, conditions there were bearable. When they moved in the foreign workers, conditions quickly deteriorated and personnel turnover at the casino skyrocketed. In spite of my willingness to “do the jobs a white man wouldn’t do”, the employer held down wages/benefits w/ the presence of the foreign workers.

Yep, been there, done that.

flmom0f4

Gold. Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard and now the dollar is worth whatever the Fed deems it to be, which is not much.

Concerned4America

FreeBSD with FireFox works fine. With Windows XP and IE8 the first part of the HE page where the feature articles are listed is all messed up and Disqus does not download and if it does everything is in a
s
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l
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and I can’t add or edit comments.

It used to work and I have not changed any settings. Someone said the problem started when they added pictures of the authors to the articles.

Sent an email to the webmaster and no response or change.

bheld

Ain’t it the truth??

Obviously, you are a man who thinks things through to their conclusion. I always enjoy your comments.

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

Hmmm … great point, mom. I’d never thought of internship that way … but yeah, if ObamaCare isn’t repealed, no American kid in his right mind will choose medical school — only to become a government employee (probably forced to be unionized) whose medical decisions and pay are overseen and determined by some flunky government bureaucrat.

1LonesomeDove1

“Are you defending 19th century child labor practices? Seriously? Well, knock yourself out. I know of no better way to prove to all reasonable people that your views are both sick and dangerous.”

This is ed’s comment that I responded to. The reason?
Because RenegadeScholar never defended the child labor practices ed was referring to. RS was talking about child labor which, like anything else then and today, had it’s good points and bad points. I would add that the government today offers very little in the way of encouraging the young to work early, nor is it heavily involved in creating the means (job opportunities) to do so.

RenegadeScholar’s main point was the same as reddarin’s; that if the problem was so serious (like always portrayed in Hollywood movies), why did it take 100 years for people to address it? This, and that government has left children with little means by which they can contribute to their family’s income, and learn a good work ethic in the process.

ed is a dishonest poster. One whom has to be carefully watched in order to keep him on the main point of your argument, lest he lead you off the road, and kill your points in the wilderness of liberal obfuscation.

21Palms

Got my first real job in 1976 at the age of 14 for 50 cents an hour. Got my first raise with my first paycheck.

FlaJim

My first hourly paid job was at 75¢/hr in 1968 and I was thrilled earning $30/wk. Cost nearly $5/wk for bus fare, too. Hard work but I applied myself and by the end of the summer, I was up to $1/hr. In my mind, I was getting paid to learn a trade (printing). I subsequently had earned the trust of my employer and went on to earn far more, only 3 years later, distributing our product. By then, I was the ripe old age of 18.

Oh, there was no a/c in the shop and the mercury often climbed to nearly 100. OSHA would have a fit these days. We just unbuttoned our shirts and drank lots of water — straight from the tap (no ice cubes)!

Goverment needs to butt out.

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

(1) “Thanks for sharing your examples of how today’s kinder and gentler employers would never dream of exploiting or abusing workers.”

Uhm … you’re welcome, I think. Don’t know how you conjured up that straw man, but to answer: in a laissez faire capitalist system, such employers wouldn’t fare well — if at all. Key word: competition.

(2) “It should be noted, though, that the H1-B software workers are, in the big
picture, a very highly skilled group.”

This is generally true with respect to technical skills, but not so (in my experiences) with crucial soft skills — primarily communication, the lifeblood of all relationships and products/production.

(3) “How does Shiff’s comment ‘high value employees have all the bargaining power they need to extract benefits from employers’ hold up in this example?”

Well, that’s simple. There are literally millions of other such high-value employees in India, China, and elsewhere happy to replace them, essentially negating their “high value” status and bargaining power.

(4) “You and I, Shain, have been very fortunate to have the right skills for the past
couple of decades. Now we’re starting to face what manufacturing workers faced back in the ’80s. Jobs are moving abroad where wages are lower. Given the cost of living in the US, you cannot possibly work for the wages that your competition gets in India.”

I heartily agree. I could barely survive on the wages my H1-B competition gets here in the U.S.

(5) “Are you ready for Shiff’s solution, where you, alone and without any legal constraints, negotiate with multinational corporations for your job? Who’s likely to
come out on top in that bargain?”

I don’t know about you Ed, but that’s exactly how I’ve been doing it since graduating from college 25 years ago — and neither party “comes out on top.” It’s a mutually-beneficial (trader principle) arrangement among all parties involved.

I can command higher rates than my H1-B competition because of my experience, networking, references, superior quality of product, and superior communication skills … but, my opportunities have in fact slowly dwindled over the years. I’ve been looking to change careers for awhile now — looks like I picked a bad couple of years to stop sniffing glue. :-) Take care; see you …

TanongSak

And you think socialism works?! It’s odd that you and your fellow liberals, who condone mass genocide in your abortion mills, think you standing standing to pontificate on “human decency.”

Ed_USA

True enough, but the old fixed price gold standard was unworkable. Under a 100% reserve gold standard the money supply can only grow as the supply of gold grows. How do you deal with the huge amount of new wealth that’s been generated in the past 40 years? Economic productivity has soared. If the number of dollars remained constrained by the gold supply then each dollar would be worth an immense amount of goods.

For example, if you convert the dollar price of a $500 PC using today’s gold price of $1785/oz back to the fixed price of $35/oz that Nixon abandoned, the PC would have a price of less than $10. But you could not build that PC, because the gold that plates the contacts of its connectors would be too precious to use for that purpose. It would all be needed to permit the creation of dollars.

Ed_USA

“There are literally millions of other such high-value employees in India, China, and elsewhere happy to replace them, essentially negating their “high value” status and bargaining power.”

And because the gov’t restricts the number of H1-B visas. Otherwise you’d soon be out of a job.

Concerned4America

Mr. Schiff gets it. I wish I could give him a “like” instead of John.

1LonesomeDove1

Exactly! The dollar used to be worth a measurable amount gold or silver. Now, trying to measure it’s value is like asking , “How long is a piece of string?”

Whatever ed’s talking about, the ending of the gold standard caused a system breakdown, and I’ve had fun with that for the past 40 years. How about you?

Fiat money is valuable only because the government says it is, but as to the measure of that value, who knows? One thing’s for sure.
Since government controls it, that value isn’t going up! And we all see how popular our dollar is as a world reserve currency, don’t we?

Why would the government favor such a system? Because it’s enormous appetite for spending tax dollars and increasing the deficit, is rendered more difficult. Also, inflating the value of the dollar makes it easier to cover (hide) its debts at the expense of dollar value. But we tax payers are paying their wages, and footing the bill, so who cares, right?

Not only this, but an unusual amount of people these days are buying………..what?

Gold!

PR_Ohio

That’s BS and you know it. Nobody (including Schiff) is talking about repealing fair labor laws, re instituting child labor, or anything of the sort. The problem is that government regulation has become overly oppressive, and trust me, socialism throughout the 20th century has been much more devastating to it’s citizens (subjects) than even the worst laisse faire style capitalism of centuries past.

The absolute most economically depressed nations in the world have suffered from various left winged governmental systems, whereas free markets, even your hated so-called laisse faire brand of capitalism, is the only system to have ever lifted nations out of the destitute poverty your kind of Marxist and other socialistic leftist and despotic governmental systems always create.

Oliverhog

This “news” article is a load of hot steaming, c*@&! Mr. Schiff wasn’t fined $15,000 for “hiring too many people.” He was fined for not registering transactions in securities and for allowing an UNLICENSED broker who hadn’t passed the examination to work in Operations and Compliance. He was ordered, or should I say, Euro Pacific, was ordered to pay $7,500 and $1,000 for the cost of the administrative examination and an administrative FINE of $6,500. Add them up. It equals $15,000. Furthermore, Euro Pacific was ordered to hire a CONSULTANT, most like an attorney, to ensure that Euro Pacific was in compliance with Connecticut banking laws and regulations. Does the name Bernie Madoff mean anything to anyone? You can be those investors would have been happy to have had regulations and someone ensuring that regulations were followed. Yeah, Schiff knows what’s best for this country.

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

You’re correct on both accounts. So, should I stay in the buggy-whip-making business — or, as I have been doing for a few years, looking for opportunity elsewhere?

I don’t have the right to a job; only the (increasingly shrinking, thanks to the growth in government) right to pursue and compete for opportunities that Leviathan still permits …

michaellyster

Ho. Hum.
The jobs are going overseas. And it’s the progressively rising cost of doing business here that is the cause. What is a hot, steaming pile of $%^#*& is the concept that somehow the Feds know better what the minimum wage for a job should be: particularly since they’re the masters of having people “intern” for one or another elected official, for FREE.If I want to offer $3.00/hour to clip bushes in my yard, you can take it: or, leave it. Period. If I have to offer $12.00 an hour to get it done, I’ll either do so,—or, not if I deem the price to be too high. THAT is how economics works. Just ask the entire rest of the world: they’ll tell you. Exceptions abound for minimum wage laws: ask anyone in sales, or in the restaurant business, or anyone who’s been a medical or surgical intern: NONE of them are given a ‘minimum wage’. Did Schiff cherrypick data for his story? Probably. And you? Probably the same. The principle remains the same. My great grandparents did not have a minimum wage to rely upon; odds are, neither did yours. Mine worked like galley slave and succeeded. Odds are, yours did too. I remember the relationship between hard work and success. You?

michaellyster

Hooray for laissez-faire capitalism! I LIKE it. Because when collectivist shills and bureaucrats and other mediocrities stay out of the way, those of us with some initiative and foresight can prosper.
After all: if you can’t oppress the proletariat, then why HAVE one? Bwahahahahaha…..

Ed_USA

The trouble is, software developers are the quintessential “knowledge workers”. There are rungs above them on that scale, but not that many rungs. Some of those rungs don’t do so well for jobs either. I used to work with a guy who has a PhD in theoretical physics. He is working in software because there are no physics jobs to be had.

So my question is, where do you go to find jobs when the high skill “knowledge worker” jobs are oversubscribed? Maybe you’ll find something even more rarefied than software. Good luck.

And what of the 3/4th of Americans who don’t even have a college degree? What do they do when China is producing 6 million new college grads per year? You may care nothing for them, and say that they can just fend for themselves. But if life gets too hard for them then you can expect trouble.

The biggest reason that China keeps buying US Treasury debt is that they don’t want to see their exports fall. They need to create millions of jobs for people flocking to the cities from the hinterlands. Otherwise they expect uprisings. Maybe you should have a bit of that concern as well.

Ed_USA

Every single first-world nation has a highly regulated mixed capitalist/socialist economy. Do you think that’s an accident?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UNVPXBBJSEEAJQYRAAMP5PHOCE Lewis M

Makes a fairly good paper airplane..

flmom0f4

If you look back on how Madoff got away with his grand scheme, you’ll find that there was not due diligence in the enforcement of the regulations that already existed. There were many red flags raised, but lax application of the regulations already existing allowed the fraud to continue for years.

flmom0f4

I’m replying here as I can’t find a button to reply to you, re: the gold standard. This is a pet peeve of mine and sometimes makes me sound like Ron Paul, whom I like, but would never consider Presidential. When Nixon took the US off the gold standard, he gave the politicians carte blanche to promise the voters their hearts desire to vote for them. THIS is to me the moment when our politics became prostituted. The highest bidder got the vote, because there were no constraints on the amount of money that could be printed for the purpose of buying votes.

flmom0f4

I get angry when I hear those like ed_usa who go off on a tangent regarding child labor. We’ve moved on from that, but the fact is that a valuable part of the introduction to working life was the apprenticeship. Growing up in Britain during the late 50′s and 60′s, the options were; go to school ’til you were 18 and then go to college(available to those whose parents were middle class and assuming you did well in school), or you left at 16 and went to work in a factory or you tried to get an apprenticeship with a firm who would pay you very little, but would send you to trade school, or in my case, to a community college, to train in the field you were employed in. Where I grew up, the main industry was engineering, shoe manufacturing or the hosiery industry. If you stuck it out, and believe me, you were poor for 4 years, you got your certificate or diploma and then you were then VERY employable. I think it should be recognized that when you have just entered the working world, the world doesn’t owe you a living, you need to prove yourself first, and the added bonus of this is that it builds character.

Oliverhog

I went directly to the administrative decree agreed to by Mr. Schiff that very specifically set forth the violations and costs and fees for those violations. I didn’t have to cherry pick anything,. If the quotes in this “news” article are accurately set down in the article, then Mr. Schiff didn’t cherry pick either. He out and out misrepresented. He wasn’t fined for hiring too many people. He didn’t pay $500,000 in legal fees to “mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome as a result of hiring too many workers.” He was ordered to hire an “independent consultant sufficiently experienced in securities regulatory and compliance issues and not unacceptable to the Division Director to (a) conduct a review of EPC’s internal supervisory and compliance procedures to ensure compliance with the Act and the Regulations, including agent registration requirements under Connecticut law and oversight of the firm’s agents’ activities” precisely to protect people’s investments. The way Mr. Schiff words it, he makes it sound as if he incurred legal fees trying to defend himself. On the contrary, he violated EXISTING regulations and codes and as part of the agreement he signed waiving Euro Pacific’s right to hearing included an agreement to hire an independent consultant. Apparently, the Connecticut Department of Banking administrative judge(s) were of the opinion that Mr. Schiff either was not well-versed in Connecticut banking regulations or that Euro Pacific failed to impress the judges that the remainder of its business was in compliance. States always have the right, per the United States Constitution to enact laws protecting their citizens. In this case, the regulations Mr. Schiff doesn’t agree with are those of the state in which he set up one of his offices. As far as I can tell from my previous comment, I didn’t cherry pick anything. I didn’t misrepresent anything. The opinion I expressed with regard to the load of c#%^ is that I’m rather tired of this rumor mill. These blogs masquerading as news and facts appear to be taken to be fact. They spread like wildfire and people keep repeating the same incorrect information. I’ve learned that I can’t read a blog and jump to the conclusion that since the author wrote the blog it must be true. Everyone on this particular site is so anti-Obama and yet you all turn around and use the statement of someone who appears to have misrepresented facts in his testimony before Congress and have no problem with that. Furthermore, if what I posted is accurate, then we want a known liar in office? We trust what this man has to say?

Oliverhog

Likewise. I’m pretty sure the Connecticut regulations and codes were in place at the time the Connecticut Department of Banking alleged Euro Pacific violated the codes and regulations. The Madoff fiasco happened in spite of regulations. Now, you claim that there was no due diligence in the enforcement of those regulations. Well, apparently the CT Department of Banking saw some red flags in the Euro Pacific case and exercised due diligence. Should they not have investigated? Should those rules and regulations not have existed? States have that right to enact legislation designed to protect that state’s citizens.

By the way, it was precisely the lack of regulation over the shadow banking system that allowed the individuals who participated in the mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps industries to bundle risky mortgages and encourage their clients to invest in those risky mortgages while buying up multiple credit default swaps against those very same mortgages they peddled to their clients. Not only did that happen under Bush’s watch, so did the legislation that split the investment banking system from the commercial banking system that allowed the investment banking system to operate in the dark from scrutiny and regulations. To hear Republicans scream about how regulations destroy jobs when more regulations were enacted under Bush’s tenure than under the tenure of any other president since Nixon seems hypocritical.

1LonesomeDove1

I agree. There is no president that I ever agreed with 100%.

Oliverhog

He wasn’t fined for hiring people. He was fined for violating existing rules and regulations of the State of Connecticut. He was fined for having someone working in Operations and Compliance who hadn’t passed the required state exam and for not producing records relating to securities transactions. He was also ordered to hire an independent consultant to ensure that he complies with Connecticut laws. I would imagine that would have been the $500,000 in legal fees (to the lawyer or firm that made sure his records and employees were in compliance) he claims he incurred in trying to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome in hiring more people. So, he wasn’t fined or punished over his right to hire more people. THAT was nowhere in the decree he signed. If you’re interested, you can actually see the whole order, the one page of it, at http://www.ct.gov/dob/cwp/view.asp?a=2246&q=434452. But lets all believe it because someone blogged it and because Schiff said it.

Oliverhog

I’m pretty sure the regulations that cost Mr. Schiff’s company, Euro Pacific, weren’t federal regulations. They were State of Connecticut banking regulations and related to failure to produce records regarding securities transactions and employing an individual in the Operations and Compliance department who hadn’t passed the state’s examination. Mr. Schiff signed an agreed consent decree wherein he was ordered to hire an independent consultant (probably that $500,000 he claims he paid to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome) to ensure his office and employees were in compliance with STATE regulations, and was ordered to pay $7,500 and $1,000 in administrative costs to the department along with a $6,500 fine. That’s the $15,000 he says he incurred for hiring too many people. I’m not sure why he’s testifying in front of the federal congress about state regulations. I’m also not sure why he claims the fines were the result of hiring too many people. Hire as many as you want, just make sure your investment firm and its employees are licensed to invest people’s money and that it and they comply with regulations the US Constitution grants every state was granted the authority to enact in order to protect their citizens. http://www.ct.gov/dob/cwp/view.asp?a=2246&q=434452

Ed_USA

Not brave enough to post this as a response to me so I’d see it in Disqus, eh? Sad. Truly sad.

Ed_USA

Thank you for doing the research and bringing the facts to the table. Very significant facts, too, and supported by the best of documentation in your link. Your post makes by far the most significant points of any of the comments. Thanks again for it.

I’m quite anxious to see the response from the “conservatives”.

1LonesomeDove1

What? I have no idea what you’re whining about this time. You were right there every time I posted today.

1LonesomeDove1

As a matter of fact, moron. I made sure it went right to the top of the page. You’re blind as a bat, and it’s my fault?

A new low for ya, flippo.

Ed_USA

I’m still waiting for your explanation of how something totally illegal and intensively prosecuted by local, state, federal, and international law enforcement agencies can be described as “UNREGULATED”. Please do elaborate.

Ed_USA

“Was I even talking about 19th century anything?”

My reply was to redarrin. Why would it matter what you were talking about? Unless you and redarrin are one and the same…

But I don’t believe that. redarrin can sometimes be sensible. I’ve never seen you manage it.

So explain yourself. Why are you replying as if you are reddarin?

1LonesomeDove1

If it doesn’t matter to you, then shut up about it. I can respond where I want, when I want…..just like you do, hypocrite. I’ve seen you reply to others who weren’t talking to you, so stop yer whining…..again..

Oh, I see what it is. Your ticked because I have a boat load of likes to your zip. Big ego buster, huh?

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1LonesomeDove1

My guess is that you’re either missing or twisting his point….as usual.

Don’t respond to me now. I don’t matter….remember?

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ed_USA

“The problem is that government regulation has become overly oppressive,”

It seems that you believe that some gov’t regulation, e.g. child labor laws, is right and good. All you object to is “oppressive” regulation. Fine.

Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s obvious that the proper level of regulation is something that reasonable people can disagree about. None is too little, and too much is “oppressive”. So fine tuning is required, and it will be conducted through politics.

That sounds rather like what we have today. Regulations have been instituted gradually over time as politics and circumstances dictated. Starting with Jimmy Carter many regulations were rolled back. Seems like the system is working . The only problem is that you want the level of regulation to be set according to your wishes, not democratically.

Sorry, the rest of us don’t agree to that. You get one vote. You vote for less regulation. Great. Noted. Now go home and wait for the vote tally to come in. If you lose then you lose. Live with it.

1LonesomeDove1

“Sorry, the rest of us don’t agree to that.”

The rest of who? All I see is you here posting at a time when you know you won’t get an immediate challenge from your opponent.

Sad, real sad.

Ed_USA

Yeah, the buttons don’t always work.

I appreciate your concerns about fiat money. The independent central bank is meant to address that. Politicians do not have direct control over the money supply.

But you have not addressed the issue of the insufficiency of the gold supply. If gold was still $35/oz and a PC cost $10 then the penny would be far too large a minimum denomination. We’d need tenth-pennys and hundredth-pennys to allow payment for small products like pencils or newspapers. Is that a reasonable approach?

You also haven’t addressed the issue of gold as a commodity. If dollars had to be backed by gold then all gold would be needed for that alone. That would cripple electronics production, dentistry, etc. How do you handle that?

It’s not useful to be peeved about something that has no workable alternative.

1LonesomeDove1

Well….I told you to shut up, and you did.

Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ed_USA

The US today has plenty of unpaid internships. There’s no law against
it, and in the current crappy labor market there is stiff competition
for them. Given that, what’s your complaint?

And I don’t think that your British internships were unregulated, were they? I’d hardly call 1950s Britain “unregulated”. In fact, I suspect that the “conservatives” here on HE would have a fit if the US tried to institute the 1950s British system here today.

My point is that essentially nobody believes that there should be no gov’t regulation of labor. Everybody wants some degree of it, even if it’s nothing more than preventing 9 year old kids from working 16 hour days in mills. All of the fulminating on HE against regulation is just a gross over-reaction to the degree of regulation that our system has settled on, not a rejection of the concept of regulation in its entirety.

As for folksy homilies like “the world doesn’t owe you a living, you need to prove yourself first”, everybody believes that. I’ve told my own kids that many more times than they’d like. But such platitudes don’t count for much in terms of effective gov’t policy.

Ed_USA

I thought, to quote Mr. Schiff, that in the capitalist system “Failure IS the regulator”. If your GF’s son couldn’t hold a job then doesn’t getting fired send a stronger message than getting paid marginally less? And why would anyone want to pay him at any level at all to “teach him how to take a job seriously”. Why not just hire somebody else who’s worth minimum wage and let your GF’s slacker son reflect on his work ethic in his copious free, unemployed time?

Ed_USA

The question is why you used the pronoun “I” in regards to reddarin’s statements. Why is that?

Ed_USA

The rest of a society in which gov’t policy is guided by the will of the voters. The regulations that we have were put there grudgingly by politicians who would rather have done what the lobbyists and corporations told them to, but had to mollify the voters with some modicum of regulation.

For example, did you find in 2004 to 2008 that trading in OTC derivatives was overly regulated?

1LonesomeDove1

Oh, the rest of society. I see.

And over 300,000,000 people elected you to come here and speak their minds for them.

Do you use an air pump to overinflated your ego?

Ed_USA

It’s just interesting to find a post that is a pure ad hominem attack on me, with absolutely zero reference to the subject of the article, and to find it as a stand-alone post. I mostly use Disqus to follow threads in which I’ve posted instead of the HE site.

But no matter. This is pretty much what I expect from a worthless scum like you. Carry on, dildo.

1LonesomeDove1

It doesn’t matter what “I” said, remember?

Ed_USA

It’s just curious, isn’t it, that you respond in the first person to comments on reddarin’s posts. Either you’re so addled that you’re not sure who you are, or….

Ed_USA

No, they elected the people who made the regulations. That’s how the regulations came to be. It seems to be the “conservatives” on HE who want to make sweeping unilateral changes to them.

1LonesomeDove1

YOU, of all people, are complaining about an ad hominem attack????????

The king of mouth is whining about ad hominem attacks???

Better erase this cry baby post before your opposition returns tomorrow for the laugh of their lives.

Ed_USA

I’ve been fairly civil to reddarin because he actually brought relevant facts to a discussion that I learned from. Consequently I find it quite difficult to believe that you and reddarin are the same person. But if you are, then I suppose I’d have to treat reddarin as you deserve to be treated.

1LonesomeDove1

BTW…it got 8 likes, so I’d say there are at least 8 other people who know you too.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1LonesomeDove1

Whatever……

Ed_USA

Go and find me a post where I’ve started a thread with an attack on you, or anyone else but the author of the article. My responses can be harsh when I’m dealing with human excrement like you, but I don’t go around starting threads with ad hominem attacks on other posters.

Ed_USA

And how many of those likes are from accounts that you refer to as “I” in responses?

Ed_USA

Good solid answer there, dildo.

1LonesomeDove1

Awwww, will you stuff it. It’s always the conservatives with you.

Yes, yes, eddiepoo….we’re all evil and you’re just so good, and pure, and polite, and right all the time that you deserve your own little patented halo.

Would you mind if it looked similar to your anus?

Ed_USA

And another winning answer from the dildo. He explains away the entire democratic process with an ad hominem.

You know, Dove, it’s no surprise that you’re lonesome. You’re the sort of person that others really can’t stand to be around.

1LonesomeDove1

Personally, I think you’ve gone off the deep end with this post. Or maybe it’s late and you should be beddie bye by already….I dunno.

At any rate, you’re not making any sense, but just so’s ya know. You’re not the first troll to choose at least one regular to treat ummmmm, fairly well….in order to gain the credibility that you couldn’t otherwise earn on your own foul mouthed merit.

Ed_USA

Check my posts for today. Pretty much all have been very civil, apart from dealing with you, the human dog turd that just doesn’t seem to scrape off my shoe.

whistle219

child labor in the mines??????

1LonesomeDove1

As usual you twist my point entirely out of proportion.
Anyway…….

I believe I have far more friends here than you ever did or will.

Why?

Because I have a cleaner more respectful mouth than you do, little boy. It’s earned me the respect here that you will never have.

The way I deal with you is the same way you treat others, and those others know it. They also see how you whine about it, and don’t think it doesn’t try their adult patience as it does mine.
Dealing with juveniles like you does have its drain effect, but seeing you wet your pants is a reward in itself.

1LonesomeDove1

Really? I’ll watch closely.

I have no doubt that YOU think you’re being civil, but you make up your own morals as you see fit.
You have your little condescending jabs and implied insults which you think you’re clever enough to conceal, but you’re not that clever.

Should you ever decide to treat others with the respect you want for yourself, I’ll commend you for it, but I don’t think those candles will find their way to your rude crap cake anytime soon.

Ed_USA

“Really? I’ll watch closely.”

Yeah, really. I invite anyone to look over this article’s comments and see what I’ve posted. Apart from you, with your long history of idiocy and your stated intent to annoy me, I’ve had nice, civil discussions with several people. Those people and I don’t agree, but we can have a civil debate in which facts matter.

So go ahead. Watch closely. See how it’s done. But STFU and find another hobby besides talking trash at me. Your obsession with that only serves to illustrate what a total ass hole you are.

1LonesomeDove1

Ya know? There are many times that I see you but don’t comment because, I’m either not interested in the subject matter….once or twice I’ve seen that you have more knowledge in the subject matter (also because I’m not interested in it)…and a few times I have either agreed with you, or didn’t really have a problem with what you were saying.

I just don’t care for egotistical puffed up blowhards like you who think they run this place, set the rules for all debates, and decide for everyone else what are, or are not acceptable sources.

But hey, it’s been fun, and this is turning out to be a little more personal than I’d like, and no one will probably be reading our boring back and forth anyway, so………..I’m gonna cut your string for now, and I might see ya on the next thread.

1LonesomeDove1

You’re not the first, the only one, or the last I’ll take on here. If you don’t like it, then you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Not relevant to the point at hand but your straw men are usually factually correct.

>And why would anyone want to pay him at any level at all to “teach him how to take a job seriously”.

Yes!! Excellent! Exactly!! The simple answer is because it is cheaper to hire someone with no experience than someone with experience. DUH.

A bit longer answer is that *everyone* has to learn how to work.

A bit longer than that answer is … it isn’t like he has no redeeming qualities so under the right circumstances it’d be worthwhile to fix the problem to keep the good things. Like your boss has obviously done in your case. Bow tie, propeller hat and all.

>Why not just hire somebody else who’s worth minimum wage

Drum roll please….

Thanks Ed. My point exactly.

Somehow this little piece of reality always seems to be ignored when liberals are touting minimum wage laws. That boy isn’t worthless – he just isn’t worth what Liberals arbitrarily set as the minimum allowable pay. Instead of learning how to work in one or two jobs he pisses through a dozen wasting his time, their time and other job seeker’s time and all the resources that are forced to be expended finding out he is worth something but not minimum wage and it is too expensive to keep him on at minimum wage and train him up.

In other words, as with every other form of price control, decreeing that labor must be purchased for at least $7.25 does not make all labor suddenly become worth $7.25.

Wayne Peterkin

Cloward and Pivens economics at work here. Tell people what they want to hear on TV while undermining the economy as quickly as possible. As soon as it suffers a complete collapse, implement socialism as the solution. The “fundamental transformation of America” will be complete. Obama will claim until the end of either liberty or his presidency, whichever comes first, that he tried to do what the people wanted, even though that is just one more lie.

Ed_USA

“he just isn’t worth what Liberals arbitrarily set as the minimum allowable pay”

Well, there are plenty available who are worth it. In fact, there are far more workers than jobs. If there were no min. wage then the employers would still not hire your GF’s son. They’d just lower the wages of the kids they do hire.

“your straw men are usually factually correct.”

I’m glad you noticed that they’re factually correct. Once you notice that they’re not straw men then we can have a good discussion.

BTW, do you have any idea why LoathesomeDove discusses things you said in the first person, as if he said them?

Ed_USA

I asked “why would anyone want to pay him at any level at all to “teach him how to take a job seriously”.”

You said “Yes!! Excellent! Exactly!!”, but did not answer the question. Why would they pay him for the privilege of teaching him a work ethic? There are plenty of kids working hard at unpaid internships every day. Why pay anything at all for someone who won’t work hard?

Your whole example of your GF’s slacker son is quite pointless. The actual question should be “is it reasonable for employers to pay people who DO work hard at below subsistence levels?” and “do we want American workers to compete on the basis of low wages, rather than forcing higher productivity via capital investment, etc.?”. These are the real questions.

Americans can never win in a low wage battle when there’s outsourcing to China, India, etc. and massive illegal immigration that the fruit growers won’t live without.

flmom0f4

The Fed regulations he was referring to were those from FINRA, due to the Patriot Act, that are applicable to all financial institutions that do business with overseas customers. I’ve encountered this myself and it has added considerable compliance costs all the way down the chain.

michaellyster

We already have a known liar in office. I believe he goes by “President Obama”.
PS: You clearly have too much time on your hands, as evidenced by your above college Poli Sci paper. If you spent all that time working, you’d be less envious of those making REAL money. Just saying.

21Palms

Anything is better than IE…

reddarin

>Dove, it’s no surprise that you’re lonesome

That was super lame. Try harder or get whacked with a stick.

Lonesome Dove was a truly awesome book. Larry McMurtry has many excellent books to his name. Fie for making a joke of it Sir!

reddarin

>Was the 1856 requirement

It was 1852 and it was pretty hit or miss on who was required to attend elementary school but no law at that time overruled the wishes of the parent. Unless you can show me a parent jailed in 1853 for showing the truancy officer the door.

That is a very interesting strawman you bring up. Does the government at any level have the authority to order the education of a citizen’s child? What if no one wanted to be a teacher? Would the government have the authority to order citizens to become teachers?

How are these laws justified today when public education is no more than liberal envirowhackjob indoctrination camps that fail miserably to teach the 3 Rs?

>lest he lead you off the road, and kill your points in the wilderness of liberal obfuscation

The best description I’ve ever seen of Ed’s go to strategy.

Ed_USA

1852. My bad. Thanks for the correction.

My point was in answer to your assertion that “Child labor laws were the result of Union and Government collusion to squeeze out the competition these kids represented.”

My question stands. If the only goal, as you say, was to get the kids out of the workforce then why mandate schooling? That clearly goes beyond the goal. Why do it?

You also said “Why hire an adult at adult wages when you can hire a kid that can do the job much cheaper.” Precisely what the employers thought.

Some in this discussion have cited that hiring of children as an “advantage”. They extol the virtues of kids earning money to support their families. The rub, as you point out, is that the reason the families needed support is that the mills preferred to hire the children instead of the parents. Is that right and proper, that the system should promote forcing children to work to support their parents?

Given what has happened with the laws in every industrialized country, it seems that most people don’t think it’s right. How about you?

Ed_USA

“Does the government at any level have the authority to order the education of a citizen’s child?”

Yes. Pretty much everybody agrees on that.

“Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country.” – Ben Franklin, 1749

It absolutely is within the purview of the gov’t to “promote the general welfare”. In particular, it was STATE governments who did the mandating. That was completely consistent with the wishes of the founders and the Constitution. But even before there were states, all of the colonies followed the lead of the Boston Latin School (established in 1635) and required towns to have schools.

The colonists thought that gov’t should support education. Every state thought so. But you question it. You seem to be all alone here. Maybe you need to reexamine your premises.

1LonesomeDove1

You might enjoy knowing that ed values your intelligence over mine, though he doesn’t value it over “his”…..of course. He thinks I’m talkin’ trash to him. Can you imagine?

The king of ad hominem crap complains about “my” dialogue. Go figure.

reddarin

> If the only goal, … why mandate schooling

The two are unrelated. As witnessed by the almost 20 year gap between them.

>Some in this discussion … forcing children to work to support their parents?

That is just silly Ed. Kids can work and there is some overlap of ability between young teens, tweens and adults but you cannot replace an adult workforce entirely with kids. Kids work for less but you get less out of them. Kids are emotionally unstable. Kids get distracted easily. There are plenty of reasons to hire an adult rather than a kid.

>Given what has happened with the laws

A faulty assertion I think. I doubt your correct about the child labor laws of other industrial countries.

>it seems that most people don’t think it’s right

lol Really? *That* is your argument? Hell, a lot of dumbasses thing AGW is real. Bunches of people think Elvis is still alive. 30% or so of Americans think Obama is doing a bang up job – about 90 million people.

reddarin

“Does the government at any level have the authority to order the education of a citizen’s child?”

Nothing you said addresses what you quoted me asking.

Ed_USA

“Does the government at any level have the authority to order the education of a citizen’s child?”

Let’s look at this another way. Does the gov’t have the authority to force you to adequately care for your child? Can they mandate that the child be given adequate food and shelter? Can they prevent you from locking the child in a closet for years at a time? Can the gov’t insist that you teach your child to speak? Sane people have long agreed that the answer is yes.

Education, in modern society, is similar. If you deny a child an education then you destroy his future, just as surely as if you did not ever speak to the child and thus prevented him from learning to speak. The society, for which the gov’t is the agent, most certainly can prevent you from inflicting such treatment upon a child.

Ed_USA

“As witnessed by the almost 20 year gap between them.”

Hardly. The creation and modification of child labor laws continued for 100 years. It was a process, not an event.

“There are plenty of reasons to hire an adult rather than a kid.”

But the glaring fact that you cannot erase is that thousands of young children worked long and arduous hours in mills until laws in every state put a stop to it. Should we go back to that?

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

“So my question is, where do you go to find jobs when the high skill ‘knowledge worker’ jobs are oversubscribed?”

[A good question, and one that I've struggled with. I've been scammed twice now -- easy to do and lots of scammers in an economy like this -- while studying for two different careers (helicopter pilot and medical transcriptionist). It's damaged my confidence and cynically prevented me from now trusting anyone. I'm presently studying Web Design and Development (I was a Tandem expert for years, then all facets of Oracle RDBMS except the Apps), but I know there's stiff competition there too. I'd thought of starting some kind of business and being my own boss (perhaps a franchise), but since the housing bubble burst -- and most of my investments were in real estate -- I've lost about 70% of my savings and retirement.]

I too worry about the uneducated. I’m not as worried about uprisings (thanks to the Second Amendment), but there will eventually be many. China, along with our national debt, concerns me greatly; they are easily our greatest enemy, with Iran probably second and North Korea or Pakistan probably third.

Now, my solution to all this is your nightmare: separation of economy and state. Were that to happen, the degree of investment, production, and prosperity in America — for all Americans — would be staggering … and set an example for the rest of the world.

reddarin

> The creation and modification of child labor laws continued for 100 years

So? You are attempting to bundle two disparate things.

>But the glaring fact

Pardon? Did you just fail to address what you quoted me saying again?

reddarin

>Let’s look at this another way

Why? Implicit to ordering a child educated is defining the education.

>If you deny a child an education

A strawman. Your whole post is a strawman Ed. Typical.

reddarin

lol

I saw that post. I’ve already printed it out, rushed to the framing shop, framed it and hung it proudly in my living room next to my velvet painting of Obama holding a slurpee.

Ed_USA

You keep using that word, “strawman”. I do not think it means what you think it means. It does not, as you appear to believe, mean “an argument that, while quite relevant to the discussion, is one that I don’t wish to address”.

Ed_USA

First, I definitely share your concerns about future job security. I also think about what else I might do in the future. Fortunately my sort of development is still in pretty high demand, for now.

Sorry to hear about your investments. It’s a good illustration why private accounts always require an SS-like plan as a backstop. The gov’t can soldier on through any downturn. Individuals unlucky enough to get hit with one at the wrong time can’t.

“separation of economy and state.”

That’s been tried. Look at the late 1800s in the US. Don’t overlook the “Long Depression” of 1873. If you are an engineer and you know anything about system theory, then you’ll recognize a positive feedback system in unregulated capitalism. Positive feedback systems are usually unstable. They crash at the slightest perturbation.

Ed_USA

“Implicit to ordering a child educated is defining the education.”

The core of it, yes. You are free to add anything you’d like. Many, if not most, kids study something outside of school, be it religion, some language/culture of their ancestry, music, dance, etc. Nuthin’s stopping you.

It’s rather like Social Security. You are perfectly free to augment it with the many tax advantaged retirement savings progams, IRAs, 401(k), etc., but the society tries to prevent consigning anyone to a future of poverty. Same with mandatory education.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1064950608 Jim Gerace

The only group that supports all aspects of the minimum wage structure and the corresponding increases are the unions. Their contracts are written so that if minimum wage goes up then they restructure the wage scale UPWARD in their contracts to compensate. It’s a big scam enjoyed by the unions.

Ed_USA

“I’m not as worried about uprisings (thanks to the Second Amendment)”

The 2nd Amendment cuts both ways. I’d guess that there are more guns in the hands of the less educated than the more educated. More non-college folks tend to have military experience as well. I hear lots of stories these days about vets coming back from Iraq and not being able to find a job. You don’t want too much of that going on.

reddarin

>I do not think it means

For someone who’s primary MO is the straw man you cannot fail to know what it means.

I say x.

You restate what I say as y or simply state y as a tangential.

Then you completely take apart y and ignore x as much as possible.

Straw man meet Ed. Ed meet straw man. Now that you are formally introduced you can quit pretending that you haven’t been seeing each other for years.

:p

Drawer22

Minimum wage apparently doesn’t apply to military & naval personnel. We work up to 24 hours in any one day, up to 7 days a week in any single week, under adverse conditions which don’t come under the purview of OSHA, unless combat has recently come within federal regulatory policies. For those who are qualified, however, service is the most rewarding challenge for which I’ve ever been so preposterously underpaid.

Đại Úy Paul (Cogito, ergo armatus sum.)

reddarin

>Minimum wage apparently doesn’t apply to military

Whoa!! Hold on there fella.

Don’t you get that piece of paper every year that lists all the wonderful benefits you get as a soldier? It’s been a long time but as I recall my paper said I was very well off. Practically rich.

heh

Drawer22

“But farm workers are not unionized. Are they?”

Ever hear of Cesar Chavez with regard to lettuce? Yes, some farm workers can be, have been and are organized and unionized.

Đại Úy Paul (Cogito, ergo armatus sum.)

Drawer22

“Practically rich” doesn’t even begin to cover it! My military service bestowed me with riches, though none were of any particular financial benefit – and certainly not when amortized over 24 hours a day!

Đại Úy Paul (Cogito, ergo armatus sum.)

Ed_USA

Formally, in order to be a straw man my example has to misrepresent your position. Your position, as I understand it, is that society/gov’t cannot mandate education for children. Is this OK so far? You claim that my argument is a straw man, that I’m arguing not against x, but against some y which is different from x. I, on the other hand, claim that x = y.

To put it simply, I claim that gov’t can force you to school your kids for exactly the same reason that they can force you to feed them.

In more detail, I claim:

1) Education, (your x), is essential for the well being of members of the society and lack of it causes measurable harm which is difficult to correct later, as would, for example, malnutrition or willful denial of needed medical care (my y).

2) Society/gov’t is clearly permitted to prevent parents from abusing their children through malnourishment, denial of medical care (again, my y), and other harmful practices.

If this argument holds, as I think it does, then gov’t is permitted to prevent parents from denying their children any education deemed to be so essential that harm would result from its denial. This follows from the power of gov’t to prevent the other harmful abuses I’ve listed.

If you think that the argument is a straw man then you need to demonstrate that x is, in fact, different from y. You need to show that education is NOT essential in the way that nutrition, medical care, or instruction in basic language usage is. You need to argue that raising your child as an illiterate would not cause harm to the child that is substantial enough that the society has a compelling interest in preventing that harm.

Unless you can successfully show that denial of education, nutrition, medical care, etc. are not similar in the degree of harm that they do then, in effect, x = y. Denial of education (x) is shown to be equivalent to denial of nutrition, medical care, etc. (y). If those are equivalent then your assertion that my argument is a straw man is simply false.

Have at it. Let’s see how you do.

reddarin

I had forgotten about him. He seems to have been a great man. I recall there was a movie made about him but I never have seen it.

The point I was making was that liberals never fail to try to hang conservatives on the low price of produce that is directly a result of illegal produce pickers.

Ed_USA

So, I see that you don’t want to try and defend your incessant bleating of “straw man!”. That’s wise, because it’s nonsense.

While I’m sure that you will still think you are right, it should be noted that supreme courts at both state and federal level have not seen my argument as a straw man. On the contrary, they have ruled that:

“parents have no constitutional right to deprive their children of the blessings of education or prevent the state from assuring children adequate preparation for the independent and intelligent exercise of their privileges and obligations as citizens in a free democracy.” – COM. ex rel. SCH. DIST. OF PGH. v. BEY et ux.
166 Pa.Super. 136 (1950)
Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued November 21, 1949.

So it seems that my argument that a child is harmed by being deprived an education and that the state can force parents to get the kid educated is entirely valid.

Your original words were “Does the government at any level have the authority to order the education of a citizen’s child?” The answer, in every state and according to the SCOTUS, is yes, it does.

Now what could possibly have made you think otherwise?

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

I’m getting ready to go on vacation for a couple weeks [to DC for a week, then Boston and Moosehead Lake in ME so my wife can see a moose. ], so won’t be able to carry on the discussion.

Ed, it’s been educational and you’ve made some excellent points; thank you. One final thing about law-abiding gun owners, at least from my experience at ranges and events: they’re the most polite and politically-aware group I’ve ever met. College education isn’t necessarily an indication of intelligence … or more importantly, wisdom. In fact, it’s increasingly being seen as a barrier to these virtues.

The recent young vets I’ve met are among the most confident, mature, and optimistic of their generation.

Oh well, all anecdotal.

One last point on separation of economy and state: it’s never occurred in the modern world (unfortunately), even in early America. It’s certainly worse than ever now …

Thanks again for the enlightening discussion. Take care, see you …

Ed_USA

Yes, thanks to you too. It’s been an interesting discussion. It’s good to see that, despite our political differences, we basically share the same concerns.

“College education isn’t necessarily an indication of intelligence”

True, but it is a good predictor of unemployment. Unemployment among non-college people is twice that of those with a 4 year degree. Salaries have also diverged sharply between the two groups since 1980. I was not trying to say that non-college people are stupid, but that they are likely to be frustrated and angry with the situation in which they find themselves.

Have a good vacation, and take care. Remember what Monty Python said in the credits to the Holy Grail:

“Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti…”

Drawer22

Your point is made – and a point with which I agree (though Chavez’ organization of illegal agricultural workers sticks in my federal law enforcement craw).

We must ever be mindful of facts, as conservatives adhere to principle, whereas many liberals do not. In fact, liberals can not regularly adhere to principle, for their perspectives would then be as dust in the wind, having no real substance and being made entirely of ideals.

Don’t get me wrong! Ideals are wonderful, but when viewed pragmatically, the logical course is to proceed with the acknowledgement of facts. For instance, like liberals, I want a world without violence. The difference is that I know violence is real, and it is for that reason that I teach how to insure that humanoid threats need not necessarily produce injury or death to one’s self or those whom one loves or is responsible. As the saying goes, “Cogito, ergo armatus sum.”
Đại Úy Paul (Μολὼν λαβέ)

http://www.rant24x7.com/ ShainS

LOL. Thanks, Ed. Off to the airport …

[P.S. -- agree with your point on college education vis-a-vis employment. Good point.]

Oliverhog

I’m not envious of those making REAL money. Not at all. I don’t begrudge anyone the money they earn. I do, however, begrudge others who use rumors and misrepresentations in support of their belief systems in order to encourage others to adopt those same beliefs. Apparently the lure and love of money causes republicans to compromise their morals and ethics, for those who actually have morals and ethics. It’s ridiculous how much effort is put into fabricating these scenarios and spreading them about the rumor mill and you accuse me of having too much time on my hands. What about those who scour videos, photos and congressional testimony for anything they can possibly spin into another lie? Oh, that is their jobs.

Oliverhog

On the contrary. It’s the right wing republicans that do all the attacking. Since Obama was elected, all the republicans and their ilk have done is manufacture rumors and misrepresentations of events and spread them around to take the focus off the real issues at hand. Any time Obama opens his mouth, republicans criticize and complain but never offer any solutions themselves. It’s clear from all the rumor spreading and complaining that the republicans’ answers are at best no better than the solutions offered by democrats. Republicans can’t find anything real so they fabricate material. When they’re called on the carpet about the misrepresentations, they walk away and start a new attack.

reddarin

“I do, however, begrudge others who use rumors and misrepresentations in support of their belief systems in order to encourage others to adopt those same beliefs”